Cleaning and Maintaining Your Hamster's Cage

An essential part of being a responsible hamster owner is the care, cleaning and maintenance of your hamster's cage. This ensures it is in healthy and clean surroundings.

Clean Your Hamster's Cage Thoroughly Every Week

You should clean your hamster's cage thoroughly at least once every week. Whilst cleaning you will probably find stored-away food. Remove some of this food, especially if it is showing signs of rotting. You should always leave some food as the hamster is used to it being in this place. Removing all of it's food may cause your hamster to panic. If you move any of the hamster food whilst cleaning, ensure you put it back where you found it.

The same goes for your hamster's bedding - give it a spruce up, but don't remove it all. Ensure you put it back in the same place. Your hamster doesn't like to make it's bed any more than we humans do!

Clean Your Hamster's Toilet Area!

Hamsters are very clean little bundles and do not like to go to the toilet in their living area. They will leave their hard and dry droppings in one area of the cage. They will also urinate as far away from their nest as possible. You should clean your hamster's toilet areas and put new litter down every day.

Hamster Toilet Tip...

Some hamster owners decide to use a jar which their hamster can urinate it. Ensure the mouth is large enough for the hamster to walk into when it is place on it's side! The hamster will use this jar as their 'wee-wee place', and if so, washed it out properly every day.

Food Bowl and Bottles Should be Cleaned

Your hamster's food bowl should be kept very clean, and so too should it's water bottle. We recommend that you flush the water bottle out every day with fresh water. If you see any algae in the bottle, you can buy a bottle brush to remove this.